(1900 - 1950) German composer, American citizen from 1943. He was a pupil of Humperdinck, Busoni and Jarnach in Berlin (1918-23); their teaching informed his early music, including the CHORAL RECORDARE (1923) and THE CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN AND WIND (1924), the latter also influenced by Stravinsky. He collaborated with Brecht on THE THREEPENNY OPERA (1928), THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY (1929) and HAPPY END (1929). In 1933 he left Germany for Paris, where he worked with Brecht again on the sung ballet THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS. Then in 1935 he moved to the USA, where he cut loose from the European art-music tradition and devoted himself wholeheartedly to composing for the Broadway stage, intentionally subordinating aesthetic criteria to pragmatic and populist ones. Yet these works are still informed by his cultivated sense of character and theatrical form.
